But, while the low cost of memory ought to make what you said a thing of the past, it doesn't address the high cost of recording and preparing those samples... Keyboard prices keep falling, but we want MORE in them all the time!

If you look at the cost of some of the VERY high quality sax soundsets for soft samplers, with every note sampled multiple times, loads of performance key triggered notes, exceptional smoothness across a wide range, you are talking some hefty money. Now extrapolate that to EVERY other sound in the entire soundset, and you end up with an arranger no-one could afford.

To be honest, I am amazed that things are so GOOD, not so bad, at the prices we tend to pay.